Worlds Will Collide
by Gaara's Plaything
Summary: In another world, a colossal battle ends with many people displaced into a new world. How will they cope there, and will their presence change things for the better, or will there be yet another disaster? Incredibly AU for both worlds, character death, violence, no pairings decided yet.
1. Advent

**What a wonderful idea this is! At least I think so. I thought of this after I went looking for interesting stories about Minato actually being alive, and some of them inspired this. Don't ask me which ones, because it was ages ago. It was originally going to be one really long oneshot, but I changed my mind.**

**Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone for tomorrow (it's the 24****th**** here) and do enjoy this story.**

**I don't own Naruto. If I did, that would be weird, 'cuz I can't draw for shit. :(**

_**Worlds Will Collide**_

**Chapter One – Advent**

The civilians had been evacuated out of the village, only the shinobi remained to defend it. Their assailant was giving them the fight of their lives, keeping them purely on the defensive. The Leaf shinobi were holding their own, but they couldn't last much longer against an enemy such as this. They may have been only fighting one man, but that man had managed to harness a power like only one before him, at least according to legend. The man who had once called himself Madara, and was otherwise known as Tobi, had turned himself into the jinchuuriki for the juubi.

"Watch out for that water attack!"

"Get to the centre, we can hit him there!"

"Regroup your formation! We can't let him win!"

"Aargh!"

"Quick! Hokage-sama needs us!"

Said Hokage appeared on the back of his toad summon, ready to face the man who was so intent on destroying their village, the rogue Uchiha whom his clan had been unable to stop. "Yondaime-sama," he sneered at the Fourth Hokage, sharingan and rinnegan whirling simultaneously. "The end of the Leaf village is here. Tell me where you sent the civilians, so I can finish them off as well."

"Never!" the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, declared.

"As you wish it," Tobi said. "I'll find them anyway, once I've dealt with you."

A massive chakra surge was the only warning the Yondaime had before his opponent suddenly sprouted two tails, his body enveloped in a chakra cloak. Minato felt a brief wrench in his heart at the knowledge that his son had died to see this madman's plans come to fruition, and he hardened his resolve.

"This may be a battle we cannot win," Gamabunta spoke sagely. "Nevertheless, it is one in which we will die to defend all we hold dear if necessary."

"Indeed," Minato agreed, then braced himself as Gamabunta leapt into the air to avoid one of Tobi's attacks.

A scream of outrage was heard from their opponent as his attack missed, then suddenly a transformed juubi stood before them, matching Gamabunta's colossal size. "You will not escape me!" Tobi shrieked from somewhere in that monstrosity, and he lunged forward.

Gamabunta neatly dodged out of the way and attempted to lead the demon enraged man away from the village. Tobi noticed this, however, and shot a tailed beast ball in the direction of Gamabunta's 'escape', forcing them back towards the villagers and the shinobi.

"You're not getting your way!" the Tobi demon shrieked, and more tails emerged.

Suddenly the beast froze, and Minato and Gamabunta hesitated, wondering what new trickery this was. The transformed demon suddenly clutched at his head, groaning and screaming in agony. It took a moment, but then Minato realised what was happening. Tobi was losing control of the juubi. This was worse than if the host was in control, because a demon on the loose with no constraints was a force none could withstand. When the kyuubi had been unleashed on Konoha, that had been devastation like they'd never seen before, but this… This was _all_ the demons combined into one.

"Everyone get ready!" Minato yelled, the closest shinobi able to hear. "This is what we've been preparing for!"

He leapt down off Gamabunta as ninja started to obey his command, then he yelled up to the giant toad, "You should get out of here while you can, Gamabunta, I don't think this will end well."

"I'm staying, kid," was the toad's only comment before he turned his attention back to the demon before them, and Minato gratefully transported himself back onto the giant amphibian.

"RAAHHRGH!" The cry of the juubi being released was heard far beyond Konoha, causing many to stop in whatever they were doing, even the civilians who were hidden far from the village. Not all of them, though, for Minato knew that they hadn't been able to get everyone to a safe distance in time, their warning hadn't been in time for that. There were some who were _still_ on their way to the safe location.

The sky, which had darkened with the power of the juubi when Tobi had begun to release it, was even darker now, lightning crackling across it. An odd thing was happening, though. Anywhere the lightning struck in the clouds, dark red and purple energy massed, and Minato knew enough about inter-dimensional jutsus to understand that they were portals of some sort. It may have been a side effect of the fact that the juubi's host was an Uchiha, and they were proficient with space time jutsus thanks to their sharingan. Or it could just be the juubi's power, there was no way for them to know.

In any case, the Fourth Hokage of the village of Konohagakure in the Land of Fire knew that they were in serious trouble. Not just the village, but potentially the entire world. He could see the blackness expanding to the horizon, and couldn't even guess at the damage being caused. Finally all ten tails were released from the juubi, and Minato had a feeling that the host had been burned up from the amount of pure demonic energy being released.

"RAAHHRGH!" Another cry from the juubi, and suddenly the space time where they were all still retreating began to warp, freezing them in their tracks. A burning sensation covered his entire body, and Minato looked down in horror to see that his body was burning with some kind of demonic fire. All of a sudden it seemed that the juubi exploded, and within the confines of that same explosion, the entire village was engulfed in fire, bodies seeming to disintegrate. Minato's last thoughts were that he hoped that the civilians were safe, and that soon, he would see his beloved Kushina once more, as well as the son he knew that he'd failed.

OoOoO

It was just another day in the village of Konohagakure, and Uzumaki Naruto, the resident knucklehead, was headed off to meet his team mates. They were helping with the rebuilding of the village after Pein's attack on it, and Team Kakashi had been assigned to the east section of the village. Tsunade had teams of gennin and some chuunin assigned to helping with the rebuilding, as most jounin and several chuunin were out on missions to bring in revenue for the village. This would have meant that Kakashi and Yamato would be off on missions, but for the moment they were free to help out.

"Alright!" Naruto said as soon as they'd reached their destination. "Let's get this going!"

"Naruto!" Sakura chastised. "You don't even know what we have to do yet! We need to find the foreman of this section."

"That would be Hasegawa Juro," Yamato said. "Over here."

Juro was a tall and beefy man who immediately set them to clearing through debris. "We saved all of this for the ninja's," he said. "Civilians can't get into the really heavy rubble in here like you guys can."

"Just leave it to us, Juro-san," Sakura said even as Naruto created several clones who cheered at the thought of helping out.

"That's him, isn't it?" Juro said. "He's the one who saved us all from the Akatsuki."

"He sure is," Kakashi said as he watched Naruto bet Sai he could clear more rubble, which the former ROOT ninja ignored.

"I died, you know," Juro said. "Explosion knocked me back and I guess I must have broken my neck or something. Came back in the middle of my wrecked house."

Kakashi nodded, knowing the feeling as he'd been among those resurrected too.

They all worked hard for a few hours, Yamato having to leave at one point to help put up some new structures with his wood style ninjutsu, but he came back once that was done to help out again. Lunch rolled around and they stopped to eat before getting back into the work. Finally, they'd cleared as much as they could, making it safe for civilians to go through instead.

"Let's head back to the Hokage's tent and see it there's anything else that needs to be done in the village," Yamato suggested, and they headed off.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered, then seemed to calm suddenly, looking inward.

"Ok, so when we get there we'll…" Kakashi stopped mid sentence as he felt that something was off, noting that Yamato seemed to sense it too.

"What is it Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked, then she and Sai felt it too.

The look on Naruto's face showed that he did as well, and the five ninja looked around for the source of the strange chakra emanations, but found nothing. The whole village worth of shinobi seemed to sense it too, the phenomenon lasting long enough for Team Kakashi to head to Tsunade's temporary tent, where even the Fifth was on edge from the malevolent emanations.

"What's going on, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked, holding a terrified Tonton in her arms.

"I don't know," was the reply. "Aoba! Raido!"

The two jounin appeared seemingly out of nowhere, though they had been nearby as they were on duty as the Hokage's 'emergency jounin'. "Hokage-sama!" they saluted in unison.

"See if you can find out what's going on!" Tsunade ordered, and they left immediately just as Team Kakashi burst into her tent.

Well really, it was Naruto that burst in, the others were just following. "Baa-chan!" he yelled. "Can you feel that?"

"Of course I can feel that, I'm not a dolt!" Tsunade snapped. "It's some kind of chakra…"

"Its demon chakra," Naruto interrupted.

"What?! How can you tell?"

"I'm not sure. All I know is that the kyuubi recognised it and tried to warn me before anyone else even noticed," Naruto told the Hokage. "It said there's only been one demon with that chakra signature, and it's impossible for it to be here, since it was dispersed!"

"What?!" several people spoke in shock at once, then Tsunade forced herself calm.

"Alright," she said, "first we need to…"

"Hokage-sama!" Raido was back. "There's something happening over at the Academy training grounds!"

"What is it?" Tsunade demanded, ignoring the fact that she'd been interrupted.

"Some sort of spatial disturbance," said Aoba, who appeared behind his comrade.

Tsunade was instantly alert and out the tent flap, Shizune (minus Tonton), Aoba, Raido and Team Kakashi hot on her heels. Sakura kept a close eye on her mentor, knowing full well she wasn't back up to her best after using her jutsu. Outside, the entire sky had begun to darken, and when they reached the partially ruined Academy, it was to find a large distortion hovering in the air. Kakashi immediately exposed his sharingan to see if he could analyse it, even as Tsunade began yelling at all the Academy students that were here to help with repairs and had ignored their sensei's to come see what was happening.

"It's definitely a space time portal of some sort," Kakashi said. "A lot like my mangekyou, in fact."

More and more shinobi had been drawn in by the phenomenon, including ones like Nara Shikaku, Inuzuka Kiba, Tenten and others. But civilians had noticed the phenomenon as well, mainly due to the oppressing air and the fact of the physical changes to the sky, which had spread as far as anyone could see. A lot of people were afraid that the village was under attack again, though nothing except the warping sky seemed to be happening, at least physically. There was still the oppressive chakra after all.

Many people jumped suddenly when lightning cracked across the sky, causing thunder to roar. The shinobi gathered at the Academy, which seemed to be the epicentre, all tensed as the space around them began to shimmer like heat coming off a surface during the hotter months. And indeed, there seemed to be heat radiating all around them. Slowly figures began to appear, ones that began to take the shape of people. Another loud crack of thunder and all of a sudden the forms materialised into actual people.

There was a tense moment as the Konoha shinobi realised that the newcomers were shinobi as well, until one of them was recognised. "M-Minato-sensei?" Kakashi stuttered at the sight of his long dead sensei standing there before him.

But the Fourth's eyes weren't on Kakashi, instead they were on the blond Uzumaki. "Naruto?" he whispered, and then he collapsed in a dead faint, along with all the others that had turned up with him.

**Well, you know the drill. Review please!**


	2. Lighting Up The Dark

**New chappie! Please like and remember that Naruto and co don't belong to me.**

**Chapter Two – Lighting Up The Dark**

Even though most of the disturbance had been centred around the Academy grounds, people had suddenly appeared all over the village. Tsunade had immediately dispatched groups to locate them, and they were all brought to a new building that Yamato put up straight away next to the makeshift hospital, as there wasn't really room for them otherwise. It was then discovered they were all suffering from extreme chakra exhaustion, as well as most of them being injured in some way or another.

One of the more disturbing things, aside from the presence of the long dead Yondaime, was the fact that a portion of the newcomers were _Uchiha_. There were a few civilians, though, and those had been found some distance from the village. Every one of these people had been radiating with the foreign chakra, and had therefore been easy to locate.

Another disturbing thing was the presence of doubles of shinobi they already knew. For example; in one of the rooms, an alternate Hyuuga Neji, sans caged bird seal, lay near comatose, while the one they were all familiar with was in the main foyer of the new building with his uncle, who was demanding access to all the Hyuuga that had turned up. Tsunade was, however, refusing to let anyone near the strange newcomers until it had been verified where they'd come from, and for that, they at least needed one to wake up first.

Sakura was helping the medical staff with healings, alongside Shizune and Tsunade, though they were all mostly healing physical wounds. For the moment, nothing but rest would cure their chakra exhaustion, no matter who wanted to talk to them. The civilians would probably take a little longer to wake up in this case, their bodies being unused to chakra related injuries and stress.

The physical injuries had all been healed by now, and any medics on duty at the moment were mostly keeping an eye on the patients, watching out for both complications and signs of anyone waking. Tsunade had already stationed Anbu guards in the halls of the makeshift hospital, just in case this was some elaborate ruse.

"Those guards won't do any good if they really are who they seem to be," Sai said as he, Naruto and Kakashi watched Tsunade talking in low tones with Sakura, Shizune and a few other medics. "Especially with the Yondaime."

"Well, he wouldn't have gotten the title if he were a pushover," Kakashi agreed. "And if they really _are_ who they seem to be, well then…"

Kakashi trailed off, noticing that Naruto wasn't really listening, but was instead simply staring at the conferring medics, an intense look on his face. "Naruto?" Kakashi asked. "Are you alright?"

"That's the fourth Hokage," Naruto said. "I mean, it might be. But his chakra feels the same as the one my father sealed in me when he also sealed the kyuubi inside me."

"His chakra feels the same?" Kakashi asked, privately agreeing, though it had been some time since he'd last sensed his sensei's chakra. "Just how sure are you about that?"

"A hundred percent," the unusually subdued blond said.

Tsunade looked up from her conversation, and saw Naruto staring at them rather intensely. "What the heck are you staring at, Uzumaki?" she snapped.

"Naruto was just commenting on the fact that the little chakra he can sense from this alternate Minato-sensei is genuine," Kakashi said. "And I agree. Apparently it's identical to the chakra that was sealed in him by his father shortly after his birth."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at the information. "Well, that's very helpful to know," she said. "Naturally, we'll still need to verify it properly once they've woken, but for now that will do. Alright, I want you lot to get your asses out of here, there's still tons of work to do in the village."

"But baa-chan!" Naruto argued.

"Get out of here, Naruto, there's nothing here for you to do, and the villagers need help," Tsunade ordered, and, with a determined look on his face, Naruto left with his team mates.

OoOoO

Waking was extremely painful, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do it. Every muscle in his body ached, but he sensed it wasn't a physical hurt. No, it seemed to be connected to his chakra instead. Remaining in the blissful darkness didn't seem to be an option for him, though, and pretty soon, Namikaze Minato found himself forced into wakefulness.

"He's awake, shishou," a voice said, and he tried to open his eyes, only to meet a painfully bright light.

"Turn the lamp off, Sakura," a voice he recognised said, and the painful brightness went away.

"Where am I?" he mumbled, his words slightly slurred.

"You're in Konoha, in a temporary hospital," said the familiar voice.

"Impossible," Minato said. "The village was destroyed by the last of the Akatsuki."

There was silence, and he forced his eyes open to find the Sannin, Tsunade, leaning over him. "Tsunade?" he asked, surprised. "But you're supposed to be dead."

Her brow furrowed. "So are you, Minato," she said. "Here at least. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Fighting," he told her. "The fake Madara, Tobi, as he called himself, had lost control, and the demon was running loose. We tried to stop the juubi but…" He trailed off as he remembered the devastation, closing his eyes in a mixture of pain and guilt.

"The juubi?" Tsunade asked, surprise in her voice. "Don't you mean the kyuubi?"

"No, that was years ago," Minato said, then looked up at the Sannin. "Where am I, really?"

Tsunade sighed. "You _are_ in Konoha," she said. "But you're right about the village being destroyed, though possibly for different reasons. From what we've been able to gather from evidence at the scene, you've left you own universe. This isn't your world."

Minato's eyes widened slightly. "What do you mean?"

"When you all arrived here, in this world," she told him, "there was a massive space time disturbance over the entire village. All of you appeared out of nowhere, and according to our only expert on this matter, another reality is the only explanation for you suddenly appearing."

"All of us?"

"In total, forty-seven shinobi, and twenty-four civilians."

Taking in that number, Minato wondered just how many had died in the fight. As he sat there, absorbing the news, Tsunade watched him closely. Kakashi had told her his theory about an alternate reality, how he'd activated his sharingan to get a closer look earlier and found similarities to the other dimension his mangekyou opened, though there were obvious differences between that world and this. The Fourth Hokage being here was a glaringly obvious one, as well as the Uchiha. And the juubi had destroyed the village? Either events had moved along faster in that world, or they were ahead in time by who knew how much. According to Kakashi and his theories, anyway.

If only they'd been able to keep this quiet, but with the disturbance alerting every shinobi in the village, as well as the spread out appearance of these alternates, there was no way that could happen. She'd already been informed of rumours that were spreading amongst the civilians, there was no way to contain it now.

Many shinobi who had 'duplicates' in these newcomers were rather shaken by the news, and the ones who didn't were wondering if that was because their other selves were dead. There was no duplicate of herself, which had just been explained, and none of Naruto, Sai or Sakura. There was another Kakashi and another Tenten, but the most disturbing to her, personally, was the one of her old team mate, Jiraiya, alive and relatively well in one of the beds.

It was almost too much for this old woman to bear.

Pushing aside thoughts of her age (which was _no one's_ business!) Tsunade focused on the man in front of her. "Maybe you should tell me more of what happened in your world."

OoOoO

Naruto was keeping busy, but it was sometimes hard to concentrate with all the whispered speculation about the people from that other world, particularly the Fourth Hokage. People were wondering about this so called other world, and why the Fourth was alive. Perhaps the kyuubi hadn't attacked back when Naruto'd been born? No, after overhearing a conversation that baa-chan had with one of her Anbu, Naruto knew that it wasn't true.

People were waking up, though the civilians were mostly still out. Naruto had been a little freaked out when he learned of the duplicates, especially the ones of people he personally knew, though he'd been worried at the lack of duplicates for Sakura and Sai. Had they been killed? He was ignoring the fact that_ he_ wasn't one of them either, though if their Sasuke was lost, then the other might have… Then, when he learned that the Pervy Sage was there as well… In any case, Naruto wanted to find out more, and the only way he knew he'd get any answers was by spying and eavesdropping.

So he got right to it.

First he managed to listen in on a conversation Hiashi was having with Shizune. He listened as Shizune told him the names of the four Hyuuga who'd come through, though he only really recognised Neji's name. All four of them were awake, apparently, and they'd managed to learn that most of the non-combatant Hyuuga had been evacuated pretty early, and were therefore not among the civilians. Of the ones who'd stayed behind, these four were, obviously, the only ones to survive. Hinata-chan had been evacuated, against her will, but apparently her father in that other world had valued her survival more than he seemed to here.

There had been an awkward silence when Hiashi learned that.

Further eavesdropping had revealed that the other Neji had been the next in line for the clan leader title, though no explanation was given as to why. After that, Naruto went to eavesdrop on a couple of the Uchiha, one of which had demanded to see someone from this world's clan, only to be shocked into silence when told that the only living Uchiha known here was a missing nin. Naruto had searched for another version of himself, because he knew that he would have stayed to fight no matter what, and when he didn't find one, he had the feeling that he'd died in combat.

But when he went to eavesdrop on baa-chan and the Fourth, he found it to be worse than he'd originally thought.

OoOoO

"Where do you want me to start?" Minato asked.

"How about sixteen years ago?" Tsunade said. "The night the kyuubi attacked. _Did _it attack?"

"It did," Minato confirmed. "But it was actually seventeen years ago for us. We seem to be a year ahead of you."

Tsunade nodded at this; it proved one of Kakashi's theories, then she motioned for him to continue. "Well," the Fourth began, "the kyuubi attacked our village, after it had been forcibly removed from my wife. Kushina, she… she had a difficult pregnancy, and bled out before anyone could get to her. I had a plan in place in case the beast escaped, but Sarutobi-sama, he managed to figure it out and took my place before I could prevent it."

"It was similar here," Tsunade told him. "Only no one knew what you were planning until it was too late."

Minato nodded. "That was the way I intended it to play out," he agreed. "In any case, after the attack, I went to see Fugaku, the leader of the Uchiha clan. The one who'd set the demon on us was an Uchiha, you see, but from what we could figure out, it wasn't someone from the village, and if it was, they were obviously believed to be dead. We went over a lot of names of Uchiha who died during the war whose bodies were never recovered, and there were only a few of them. We never could figure out which one it was, not even when he came back.

"It seemed he'd created a group called Akatsuki, and one of their missions was to kidnap jinchuuriki so their demons could be extracted."

"We have them here," Tsunade told him. "They attacked the village only two days ago."

"Was it Pein?" Minato asked, and Tsunade nodded. "You may get a message requesting your presence in Iron, then, if that still happens here. The Kages want the Akatsuki dealt with once and for all."

Tsunade nodded, and Minato went on to explain life in the other Konoha. There were a lot of similarities, but only a few. For instance, Naruto and Sasuke had still been on the same team with Kakashi as their sensei, but it seemed that Sakura hadn't even been a ninja in the other world. They still had Orochimaru invade during the chuunin exams with Suna's help, but Minato and a couple of Anbu had managed to actually kill him, driving the Sound and Sand ninja's out. It had been awhile before the Leaf had trusted their former allies again.

Minato had sent his son off to train with Jiraiya, basically blackmailing the pervert into it, apparently, and when Minato came to the invasion of Pain, he had a different story to tell. "We lost a lot of people," he told Tsunade, "but we managed to kick him out of the village. Not before he knocked Naruto out and took off with him, though."

"So they took him back to Ame and extracted the kyuubi?" Tsunade asked.

"Yes," Minato said. "Not long after that, the five shinobi nations were at war with the Akatsuki. For two months we fought, and the Akatsuki were reduced to only one, their true leader. We didn't hear from him for months after he finally got hold of the last tailed beast, the eight tails. Then he just showed up and announced that he was the jinchuuriki to the reconstituted juubi, and attacked."

**Please review!**


	3. Politics

**Wow, lookie here! A chapter! I want to point out, before you read this, that I've never read the manga, and have only seen the anime up to the episode where Hinata confesses to Naruto and gets stabbed. That's as far as the anime is available here in Australia, the next set isn't out until next month. So anything that isn't exactly right, we can just chalk up to the fact that I said both worlds in this are AU, and leave it at that, okie dokie?**

**Anyway, I don't own Naruto, but don't let that stop you from reading this. ;)**

**Chapter Three – Politics**

The three most important types of ninja in the village at the moment were the earth and water users who'd flattened out some of the landscape and redirected a part of the main river respectively, and Yamato, the only wood user in existence, whose jutsu was invaluable for creating temporary accommodations for the residents of the devastated but recovering village. The rubble of the Hokage building had been searched in earnest, and the blueprints for the village had been found beneath the spot where the basement would have been. The vaults had been deep underground, a blessing in this case as most of the important records for the village were stored there.

So many things needed seeing to, reconstruction, rubble disposal, mission assignments, food and supply runs, but Tsunade was delegating a lot of the work to the ninja clans. For example; she had the Hyuuga sending as many of their able bodied members out to pick up food from the storage facilities in the north that were usually used for supplementing during the winter months, and she had the Nara clan off to the facilities in the south. No one was allowed to slack off, and keeping busy prevented people from freaking out over everything that had been happening.

So many things to deal with, and yet _this_ had to happen. Tsunade sighed as she read the report handed to her by Ibiki. It seems that, when Konoha was under attack and innocent civilians were dying, Shimura Danzou, the big, fat thorn in her side, had ordered his ROOT agents _not_ to assist in the village's defence. He and his black ops had stayed down in their little bunkers and waited until everything was over, and had only come up when they thought it was safe to throw their weight around and take over. But what that old _ak__ù__ma_ hadn't counted on was the fact that Pein had brought everyone they'd killed back to life, and that, despite the fact that the village had been laid to waste, the people were behind their Hokage as strongly as before.

She frowned and bit anxiously at her bottom lip as she contemplated everything that had happened. Tsunade had sent for Homura and Koharu, intending on showing them this report. They would not be able to continue supporting Danzou once they saw this, and if they did, then she had every intention of having her Anbu arresting them on charges of conspiracy. Already she'd accompanied Anbu to Danzou's quarters and had him locked in a cell, the dankest and dirtiest one she could find. The old _ak__ù__ma_ had gone suspiciously easy, with little to no fuss.

The elders were due any moment now, and she glanced briefly up at the door of her temporary office, wondering what was taking them so long. She also needed to discuss the 'newcomers' with them, to find out what their opinion was. Tsunade already planned to allow them out, with Anbu watching them, naturally, and nothing those old _yagi_ said would change her mind. They needed the extra hands, and that was that.

She thought back on her earlier discussion with Minato. Tsunade had asked him for more detail about this Kage meeting in Iron country, and he'd told her that representatives from Lightning Country would be there soon. The capture of the eight tails jinchuuriki, who also happened to be the Raikage's brother, had prompted A to make this decision, and Tsunade thought over the troubling report that had come in by hawk just before Pein had attacked.

Unlike in that alternate world, where it had apparently been Hoshigake Kisame who'd captured the jinchuuriki, Killer B, here, it had been Uchiha Sasuke and the team he'd formed after killing Orochimaru. Minato had said that Killer B had evaded capture the first time round in his world, and wasn't properly captured until the fourth official shinobi war started. Was the first part the same here too? She hoped so.

Tsunade's thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door, and before she could respond, the door opened and Homura and Koharu entered her office. "Tsunade girl!" Homura started in on her. "What is this about arresting Danzou? You'd better have a good explanation for this."

Tsunade threw the report scroll at him, ignoring his glare at the treatment. "Read that," was all she said, then sat back and waited.

Homura gave her a weird look, then unrolled the scroll on the desk and he and Koharu read through it. The latter gasped and looked sharply up at Tsunade. "Is this really true?" she demanded. "How on earth did you discover this?"

"I've had people watching Danzou for awhile now," she told them, rather pleased at the look of surprise on their faces. "I've had a feeling for some time that he was up to something, but I couldn't prove it. My people are searching ROOT headquarters for evidence."

"Why have you not told us of your suspicions?" Homura demanded.

"Because I had no idea if you were with Danzou or not," Tsunade told them, then, on cue, three Anbu entered the office. "Choose your next words carefully, or you could end up in a cell next to him. Are you in any way a part of Danzou's plans?"

"Absolutely not!"

"This accusation is absurd!"

The two elders spoke in unison, but their reactions were genuine, from what she could tell. "I didn't accuse anyone," Tsunade said. "It was a simple question, but I have my answer now."

She nodded at the Anbu, who left, and the two elders relaxed slightly. "This is dire news," she told them, "but there are other matters we need to discuss as well. The newcomers…"

"Ah, yes," Koharu said, her posture straightening. "What are your plans for them?"

"I intend to integrate them into the village until it can be determined if they can go back to their own world," Tsunade said, noting the fact that the old _yagi_ looked like they wanted to argue. "However, from what I've heard from a couple of them, the level of devastation to their world might make it impossible, and they may be stuck here permanently."

"Do you really think it wise to trust any of them?" Homura asked. "They may be from the Leaf, but not _this_ Leaf. How do you know they won't try to take over the village, or even attack it?"

"Anbu are watching them," Tsunade said, "and the ones from Clans have been handed over to ours here. If anything does happen, we'll know about it."

There was a knock at the door, and after Tsunade barked a 'come in!', two Anbu entered the office. "Lady Tsunade," one of them said. "We have completed our search of ROOT headquarters, but were unable to find anything immediately useful. There were, however, several encoded documents which we have already sent to the decoding team."

Tsunade nodded. "Very well," she said, then turned to Homura and Koharu. "Danzou will remain in custody to face the charges for not sending ROOT out to aid the village. Agreed?"

The elders nodded, and Tsunade said, "Very well. Now, unless there's something you want to add, I have a village to fix. Good day to you."

And with that, they were summarily dismissed.

OoOoO

After eventually getting caught eavesdropping, Naruto had been sent out on a mission to escort some merchant from one of the border towns to one a few days journey from it, with Kiba, Akamaru and Tenten being sent out with him. When they got back, he found out that all of the newcomers were awake, and had been allowed to move about relatively unhindered. He said goodbye to his team at the gates and took off find Sakura, whom he decided might be able to tell him some of the things that had happened while he was gone.

He found her in the brand new hospital, which had been under construction when he'd left, and was now finished. "Naruto!" she greeted him. "You're back! How was the mission?"

"Incredibly dull," he told her. "The client was some old biddy who sold these ridiculous looking things that she assured us would bring in tons of yen for Konoha as soon as she could arrange for a stall here, but I don't believe her."

Sakura giggled. "Well, I've just finished my shift here, you want to head out and find Sai and Yamato-taichou?"

"Sure, but what about Kakashi-sensei?"

"He's on a mission," he was told.

They found Yamato and Sai overseeing the rebuilding of the Academy, with Yamato creating planks of wood and Sai using his ink birds to lift them up to where carpenters and builders could nail them into place. "Hey Naruto, Sakura," Yamato greeted after creating seven boards at once. "Are you guys here to help?"

"Not really, but we can since we're here," Sakura said. "What would you like us to do?"

For a few hours, they helped out, until Naruto's stomach growled loud enough to startle everyone, then Yamato said, "I guess it's time to eat. Come on, we'll head off to the food area. I hear Teuchi has put up a temporary ramen stand there, Naruto."

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air, and they head out.

As they dined on ramen that Naruto declared a million times better than the bugs and worms he ate at Mount Myōboku, Sakura and Yamato caught him up on what had happened the last few days. The alternates were free to roam around the village, and had been helping out with the rebuilding as well. There were some people who were wary around them, and that issue had to be addressed when assigning them duties, but otherwise it was going fine. Naruto wondered where the other version of his father was, was he with Tsunade helping out with village issues?

In any case, he wanted to go see him, but wasn't sure what he'd do or say. The Fourth Hokage had looked surprised to see him when he'd first arrived, because the other Naruto was dead as he'd learned. How would that affect them meeting? Naruto was thinking unusually deeply about this, so he missed the arrival of two newcomers, only glancing up to see them when they spoke.

"Er, hello. Are these seats taken?"

Naruto looked up to see two people standing there, one of whom he recognised easily. "Hi, I'm Shisui," the one who'd spoken said. "Mind if my cousin and I join you?"

That cousin was none other than Uchiha Itachi.

OoOoO

The three ninja approaching the Village Hidden in Leaves were a little wary, considering that they'd heard in the town they'd passed through recently that Konoha had been attacked. What state was it in? Was their Hokage in any shape to go to Iron? In any case it didn't matter, Karui, Omoi and Samui were here for one reason and one reason only, and there was nothing else they needed to worry about. Still, as they approached the gates and noted the deteriorated state it was in, it seemed to confirm the rumours.

Once inside, they saw the giant crater that was now the village. "This is probably because you threw the rock at me," Omoi said to Karui, eyes slightly wide. "I told you this was going to happen."

"Let's just find someone who can tell us what transpired," Samui said. "Oh look, a Leaf ninja. Hey you! What's happened here? And where's the Hokage?"

The Leaf ninja looked at them suspiciously, then noted their hitai-ate. "Akatsuki attacked," he said.

"Well, we need to see the Hokage, we have a letter from Raikage-sama," Samui told the jounin.

"You'll find the Hokage in the largest building in the northern section," he said. Follow me."

The jounin then lead them to a building, not letting his guard down the whole way, and then Konoha Anbu had them wait until the Hokage could be informed of their presence. The three of them waited until one of the Anbu returned.

"You can come up," he said. "But only one of you."

"You two stay here," Samui told them. "And try to behave yourselves for once."

She followed the Anbu up, and Karui sighed. "So we just have to wait here for her?" she groused. "Typical."

"What kind of trouble could we get into?" Omoi wondered. "Maybe she thinks we'll accidentally start up the next ninja war. Or maybe the Akatsuki are still here, and we'll end up fighting them. Or maybe a rainstorm…"

"Would you shut up?!" Karui yelled. "Just sit down and wait!"

The two of them managed to sit in silence for awhile.

Meanwhile, Samui was meeting with the Hokage. "I have a letter here for you from Raikage-sama," she said, "requesting your presence in the Land of Iron to meet to discuss the Akatsuki."

Tsunade took the letter and skimmed over it, noting that it mentioned the Akatsuki taking Killer B. "It says here that the Raikage's brother was kidnapped?" the fifth Hokage noted. "We have information that suggests that he may have escaped the battle and that the Akatsuki only captured a clone."

Samui sucked in a breath. "Where did you hear that?" she demanded, not really wanting to get her hopes up, but still.

"Something rather unusual happened in Konoha recently," Tsunade said, "some people showed up who know about things that will happen. For instance, I knew an envoy was coming to request my presence in Iron."

"And these 'people' said that Killer B-sama is alive?" Samui asked a little harshly. "Who are they that their word is so reliable?"

"Well, one of them happens to be the Fourth Hokage," Tsunade said, just as a man who was supposed to be dead stepped into the room.

**So, Danzou isn't finished, even though he's in jail at the moment. And how are Team 7 going to act around Itachi? How will the knowledge that Killer B is alive and unhurt affect the outcome? And what about the summit? Find out soon, once I figure it all out, lol! ;)**

**Review please!**

_Ak__ù__ma: Devil._

_Yagi: Goat. So old yagi is old goats. Japanese don't really do plurals._


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